View full sizeStephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-StandardSymphony Syracuse, with Grant Cooper conducting, present An Evening of Music from Mozart to Sousa on July 28 at the Austin Park Pavilion, in Skaneateles.

Syracuse, NY -- A new organization called the Syracuse Philharmonic Society wants to bring symphonic music back to the city that lost its orchestra to bankruptcy this spring.

The “Syracuse Phil,” for short, has new leaders, a new financial plan rooted in Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music and a flexible attitude about the venues and kinds of music it will play. A new group could immediately start performing, but it would take about five years to evolve into a stable, full-time orchestra, two organizers said Monday.

Two former Syracuse Symphony Orchestra musicians have listened to the plan and will share the details with the other unemployed musicians today, said Jon Garland, a horn player and treasurer of the American Federation of Musicians Local 78.

Jeffry Comanici, assistant dean for advancement in SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, and attorney Mark Wladis explained how the new operation could work. First, the group will hold community forums to talk about the public’s wants and needs.

SU will form the new “Center for Live Music in the 21st Century” as a place to research and design a successful business model that can be repeated as classical music organizations struggle to survive across the country. The center can draw staff from SU’s business, communications, government relations and information technology schools.

“This could be the perfect opportunity to create something that becomes something else we’re known for at the university and in the community,” Wladis said.

The center will be led by Patrick Jones, who was recently hired as the new Setnor director. Jones came to Syracuse last month from Boston University, where he was music education department chair. The center’s first project will be the Syracuse Philharmonic, he said.

The new operation would start small. Daniel Hege, music director of the former SSO, will continue as artistic manager, music director and conductor. SU has been paying his salary and benefits for at least one year and will continue. The group also plans to hire a director of operations and personnel to manage business affairs for the first three years.

To start, the organization will hire seasonal musicians as needed and will pay wages on the union scale, but is not negotiating a new union contract. It hopes to hire full-time musicians and more administrative staff, including an executive director, in 2013.

The new philharmonic has offered to take over the concerts already in the planning stages by Symphony Syracuse, a “lifeboat” organization the musicians set up to keep playing until a permanent organization could be formed. The new group is organizing a Sept. 11 memorial concert.

The new organization would play at the John H. Mulroy Civic Center. It could also play concerts in other venues, such as the Landmark Theatre, to sell more tickets and bring in new audiences.

Programming ideas include changing the times of the masterworks concerts to half an hour earlier, 7:30 p.m. Friday, skipping Saturday and adding a Sunday matinee. The schedule could be more respectful of the snowy Syracuse weather, for example, shutting down in January and February.

Pops concerts could be held at the Landmark. Like the previous orchestra, the philharmonic could play regional concerts in Watertown, Rome and Cortland. It would bring big-name guest artists and special events that could involve classical, country or gospel music.

Over the years, the SSO had grown to a $7 million-a-year operation with 61 core musicians, 14 contract musicians and 18 full- and part-time staffers.

Comanici was executive director of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra in 2006, the last year it made a profit. He was working as a consultant to the SSO last summer as it struggled to pay the bills. When the SSO filed for bankruptcy this spring, SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor directed him and Ann Clarke, dean of the VPA school at SU, to work on a solution to bring symphonic music back to the city.

Comanici said he believes that the community could support an orchestra on a smaller budget. He proposes a $5 million budget with the first $1 million to come from SU, Onondaga County government and the Syracuse Symphony Foundation.

Onondaga County government, which owns the OnCenter complex where the SSO played, contributed about $400,000 in previous years. The Syracuse Symphony Foundation was the fund-raising arm of the former SSO and had earned enough money from its endowment to contribute about $350,000 each year to an orchestra.

The Syracuse Philharmonic is assembling a board of directors that, so far, includes no members of the defunct SSO board. Five people have been invited so far, including Wladis, pianist Andrew Russo, businesswoman Cydney Johnson, WCNY President and CEO Robert Daino and the VPA’s Clarke.

The group emphasized that the Syracuse Philharmonic is a new organization and not simply a rebirth of the old orchestra. It intends to borrow the most successful ideas of other classical music groups around the country. Using the philharmonic name is reminiscent of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which is thriving under the direction of enthusiastic young conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

The philharmonic plans to create a fellowship program in which recent graduates of universities and conservatories could play on three-year contracts with nominal pay. That is based on the relationship between the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and the Rochester Philharmonic.

Most of the musicians who played in the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra will hear about the plan for the first time at meetings today.

Garland and Michael Bull, who has been production manager for Symphony Syracuse, were given a general overview of the plan but few specifics Friday. They listened but made no commitments.

They are concerned about a build-up that takes five years. Garland wonders if the musicians can make a living under the proposed model. About 10 musicians have already left Syracuse and more could follow.

“Our focus remains on a full professional orchestra in Syracuse,” Garland said. “I think that to think that we can wait too long down the road is not realistic as far as keeping the musicians of the Syracuse Symphony here.”

The group plans to invite the community to town hall meetings to discuss the plan. The public can hear Hege and Jones talk in general about preparing music students for orchestras in the 21st century at a panel discussion at 1 p.m. Sept. 9 at Setnor Auditorium.

Hege said he is encouraged by the plan and is committed to the job. “It really requires a visionary approach to really make this thing a viable idea. For everyone to wrap their minds around and to really get behind it, I think they have to see some sort of future in it,” he said.